Speaking of bass players. If you haven’t seen or heard Esperanza Spalding, who I mentioned in my favorite albums from 2008, you must. So here is the young wunderkind bassist/vocalist playing a Milton Nascimento tune, Ponta De Areia, one of my favorites from the legendary Brazilian composer.
It’s, of course, unusual seeing a young woman play with such expertise on what has been primarily a man’s instrument in the annals of jazz, but that she also is an extraordinary singer and does both on stage with such ease is inspiring. Obviously, the world of music is changing and for the better.
What strikes me about this performance is her virtuosity on the doublebasse and that she also sings so naturally when it is one of the most difficult instruments to play while singing simultaneously, because you are creating counter patterns with your hands and your voice. And it’s kind of an awkward instrument to sing with. She has no problems.
The performance is from October, 2008 in Rio.
Larsen and Feiten had first teamed on the seminal jazz-blues-soul album 
Miles is credited with bringing jazz into the fusion era when he started experimenting in the late 1960s with rock and funk influences as well as a number of players from various backgrounds and styles. He was a leader in the fusion movement, but he was also influenced by what was going on around him, as he had always been, while jazz and rock began to merge in various forms.
It’s a pleasure to note that the film makers of Jeff Beck Performing This Week … Live At Ronnie Scott’s got it right. So right it’s one of the best concert films in recent memory. The last with this type of professionalism and dedication to the music and musicians was another Cream gig, the reunion concert from 2005, also at RAH. But the Beck show is better.
He launched into what has become in the past few years his traditional opener, Beck’s Bolero, a Jimmy Page composition from the classic 1968 Truth album with the Jeff Beck Group, which influenced most of the heavy blues-based rock that would follow in the 1970s (see Led Zeppelin). The album cut is heavily produced. In concert, the tune benefits from a scaled down, tight, spare version with his four-piece band: Vinnie Colaiuta, drums, Tal Wilkenfeld, bass and Jason Rebello on keyboards.